Adult and juvenile PIT tag recovery data are analyzed to compare survival estimates for transported fish of known origin, downriver stocks, wild and hatchery transported fish and fish handled and not handled at dams.

Information Transfer:

To address the question, "can transportation of fish to below Bonneville Dam compensate for the effect of the hydro system on juvenile survival rates of the Snake River spring and summer Chinook salmon during their downstream migration?" The information will be posted on a website and used to publish reports.

Completed the 2003/04 Annual Report for Migration Years 1997-2002 Mark/Recapture Activities and Bootstrap Analysis in April 2005.
Completed the 2005 Annual Report Mark/Recpature Activities and Bootstrap Analysis in December 2005

Estimate transport/control ratio and in-river survival rates for wild and hatchery yearling Chinook and steelhead concurrently over a number of years in order to span a range of environmental conditions.

The project sponsor, marking agencies (USFWS, ODFW, & IDFG) and the CSS Oversight and Analysis Committee members (WDFW, CRITFC, ODFW, IDFG, USFWS) must coordinate within the project and with other agencies as necessary to complete the objectives and tasks of the study.

12/1/2006

11/30/2009

$65,800

Biological Objectives

Metrics

No Metrics for this Work Element

Manage and Administer Projects

IDFG and ODFW management, administration and overhead.

IDFG and ODFW provide management and administration of their respective on-site marking sites for the CSS project. IDFG at the Rapid River Hatchery, McCall Hatchery, Clearwater Hatchery, Niagara Springs Hatchery, and the Salmon and Clearwater traps. ODFW at the Lower Grande Ronde River trap and Lookingglass Hatchery and Irrigon Hatchery.

12/1/2006

11/30/2009

$218,890

Biological Objectives

Metrics

No Metrics for this Work Element

Manage and Administer Projects

USFWS (CRFPO) management, administration and overhead of CSS contract

As the project sponsor, CRFPO provides overall management and administration of the CSS project and the CSS Oversight Committee portion of the project. This includes administration and management of implanting PIT tags at Dworshak NFH, Carson NFH, Hagerman NFH, and Magic Valley NFH.

12/1/2006

11/30/2009

$934,940

Biological Objectives

Metrics

No Metrics for this Work Element

Provide Technical Review

Review and provide comments on draft annual CSS report

The CSS Oversight and Analysis committee members from ODFW, WDFW, CRITFC and IDFG and the USFWS employees assigned to this task will review the draft annual CSS report.

12/1/2006

11/30/2009

$230,600

Biological Objectives

Metrics

No Metrics for this Work Element

Produce Annual Report

Annual Report

USFWS employees of the CSS Oversight and Analysis Committee review and analyse the data from the study and write a draft annual report.

12/1/2006

11/30/2009

$188,980

Biological Objectives

Metrics

No Metrics for this Work Element

Produce Annual Report

IDFG and ODFW to provide annual summary reports to USFWS

IDFG and ODFW will provide annual summary reports of CSS activities and results at their respective CSS tagging sites to USFWS for inclusion in its CSS annual report.

12/1/2006

11/30/2009

$75,220

Biological Objectives

Metrics

No Metrics for this Work Element

Produce Status Report

Produce Quarterly PISCES Status Reports

Complete quarterly status reports in PISCES as required by the contract.

12/1/2006

11/30/2009

$3,210

Biological Objectives

Metrics

No Metrics for this Work Element

Analyze/Interpret Data

Response to comments, questions, issues, recommendations

The Oversight and Analysis Committee (and USFWS employees) are responsibe to develop written comments, oral presentations, and to participate in discussions of specific issues surrounding the CSS. This includes responding to specific technical questions that address statistical design and to more general inquiries regarding study data and analysis.

12/1/2006

11/30/2009

$321,340

Biological Objectives

Metrics

No Metrics for this Work Element

Collect/Generate/Validate Field and Lab Data

IDFG, ODFW & USFWS will collect/generate/validate field and lab data at CSS respective sites in accordance with the CSS Work Plan for 2007.

IDFG will perform this work at Rapid River, McCall, Clearwater, and Niagara Springs Hatcheries and the Snake, Salmon & Clearwater Traps. ODFW sites are Lookingglass and Irrigon Hatcheries and the Lower Grande River trap; USFWS will tag at Carson and Dworshak, Hagerman, and Magic Valley National Fish Hatcheries.

12/1/2006

11/30/2009

$158,680

Biological Objectives

Metrics

No Metrics for this Work Element

Develop RM&E Methods and Designs

Development/Refinement of Study Statistical Design

The Oversight and Analysis Committee (and the USFWS employees assigned to this task) in its annual review of the study data and analysis may determine that specific elements of the statistical design need to be modified to meet the original study objectives. The Oversight Committee will develop alternatives and modifications that are determined to be required. These modifications might be precipitated from outside peer review comments and recommendations such as those prepared by the ISRP.

12/1/2006

11/30/2009

$291,650

Biological Objectives

Metrics

No Metrics for this Work Element

Install Fish Monitoring Equipment

IDFG Installation of Clearwater River Fish Trap

Install Clearwater River trap nd have operational by March 6 to collect Chinook and steelhead for PIT tagging for CSS all naturally produced (wild) Chinook and steelhead trout, in excess of Smolt Monitoring Program (SMP) need, March - June 2007.

12/1/2006

11/30/2009

$34,120

Biological Objectives

Metrics

No Metrics for this Work Element

Mark/Tag Animals

IDFG, ODFW and USFWS to implant PIT tags in accordance with the 2007 CSS Work Plan.

Local or MSRT Comments: An increase in this budget responds to Council, fish and wildlife managers, ISAB and ISRP requests for the addition of steelhead in the sampling design. Also, with the CBFWA assuming administration of the fish passage functions proposal, a reduction in the budget of approximately $400,000 could occur. This recommendation assumes successful implementation of Project Number 200732100.

Comments: The response by the project sponsors was adequate, and they agreed with all ISRP comments and recommendations that were mostly taken from the recent ISAB review report (ISAB 2006-3). One of the major recommendations in that report was that the 10-year ongoing Comparative Survival Study (CSS) project lacked a holistic perspective and needed a summary report providing an in-depth description of methods and detailed analyses and interpretation of the data in a retrospective style. The CSS project responded that they would produce such a report in 2007. As most of the comments and recommendations in this review will be addressed in that report, it is critical that the ISRP/ISAB be involved in review of that report when it is released.

The ISRP agreed with critics who express concern that two downriver sites (Carson Hatchery and John Day River) are probably insufficient to give accurate upriver-downriver comparisons of SARs. This concern is bolstered by the variability among upriver hatcheries shown by the CSS data. For this upriver-downriver comparison to be generally accepted, it seems prudent to add more downriver sites in the future. In response, the CSS will add another downriver site in the Warms Springs River for wild Chinook tagging for 2007 to complement the ongoing tagging in the John Day River. This is a positive action, however, additional downriver hatchery sites are even more important to add because at this time, five upriver hatcheries are being used as tagging sites and only one downriver. There needs to be better hatchery to hatchery comparisons, and adding several lower river hatcheries which show a range in return rates will provide a more realistic comparison in survival rates.

If additional downriver tagging sites are to be added to the CSS, the project sponsors indicate that more funding must be made available, and the ISRP agrees that the budget will need to be adjusted accordingly.

Reporting of results by the project has been good with Annual Reports to BPA for each year of the project. There is potential for production of peer reviewed papers considering project results and this should be considered in the near future.

Comments: In general, this is a supportable proposal but a response is needed to address issues raised in the ISAB's recent report: Review of the 2005 Comparative Survival Studies’ (CSS) Annual Report and Applicability of Comparative Survival Studies’ Analysis Results. See www.nwcouncil.org/library/isab/isab2006-3.htm.

Specifically, the proponents should respond to the following selected recommendations from the ISAB report (which was issued after this proposal was submitted):

1) It has been ten years since the CSS was initiated. The report that the ISAB reviewed was the latest in a series of annual progress reports, and thus lacking a holistic perspective. The ISAB recommends that the CSS produce a ten-year summary report providing an in-depth description of methods and detailed analyses and interpretation of the data in a retrospective style.

2) The CSS needs to more effectively present the methodologies used in their analyses (in this proposal as well as their annual report), so the criticism of complicated and convoluted formulas can be avoided. The scattered explanations in several annual progress reports could be consolidated in the ten-year summary recommended above.

3) The ISAB agrees with critics who express concern that two downriver sites (Carson Hatchery and John Day River) are probably insufficient to give accurate upriver-downriver comparisons of SARs. This concern is bolstered by the variability among upriver hatcheries shown by the CSS data. For this upriver-downriver comparison to be generally accepted, it seems prudent to add more downriver sites in the future.

4) Data on size of all PIT-tagged fish from hatcheries and other release sites should be included in the report in much greater detail. Size at release may be a significant factor in differential SARs. The ISAB recommends including a specific section in the report focusing on the potential effects of size at release on survival of all PIT-tagged fish.

5) Assumptions inherent in the analyses should be specifically tested, with continued vigilance toward avoiding bias.

6) Pre-assigning the intended routes of passage at the time of release into in-river and transport groups would greatly simplify calculation of SARs and eliminate much criticism of current methods that are unnecessarily complex. This modification to the study design is scheduled for implementation in 2007 (according to the 2005 Annual Report but this change in protocol should be indicated in the proposal).

7) Analyses could emphasize more diverse metrics of differential survival, thus avoiding the criticism that the project staff focuses mainly on contentious issues such as the relative survival of transported and in-river migrants (T/C ratios) and differential delayed mortality between transported and in-river migrants (D). Passage routes, numbers of dams bypassed, distance from ocean, different hatchery practices, and other features have been explored beyond the issue of transportation.

Other comments:

A timeline with years (1996 - current) should be included within the background section to improve the proposal. Details in this section are sparse and references are lacking. The proponents either assume that the reviewers know all the background and justification for this project or decided not to go through the work needed to provide the details.

The project history section consists of only a few sentences and is lacking sufficient detail to provide project accomplishments and give adequate justification for continued support. For such a long-running project there have been a number of important accomplishments and completed documents that need to be listed in this section.

Please refer to proposal #s 199102900, 199302900, and 198605000 for examples of proposals for long-running projects that have clearly laid out study designs and protocols, project histories with adequate detail, and strong justification for continued support.